Fire Dept. Defends Policy On Hiring

By KAREEM FAHIM

Published: September 2, 2005

The New York Fire Department acknowledged yesterday that it has been making increasing use of hiring agreements that allow firefighters with minor drug and alcohol convictions to join the ranks as long as they agree to random substance abuse tests.

The use of so-called stipulation agreements came into the spotlight on Wednesday when the father of a firefighter who had been hired conditionally was arrested and charged with offering thousands of dollars in bribes to employees of a Brooklyn medical laboratory to help dispose of his son's urine samples that had tested positive for cocaine, the authorities said.

Fire officials called the stipulation agreements smart policy, and said they were intended to forgive youthful mistakes, including minor drug or alcohol arrests, and to more closely monitor firefighters with a history of such problems. Stipulation agreements allow the department to fire those who fail substance abuse tests.

The number of such agreements has risen 50 percent in the last three years, according to Francis X. Gribbon, the department's chief spokesman.

Of the approximately 3,200 firefighters who have joined the department since 2002, 165 have signed such agreements, Mr. Gribbon said. In the most recent graduating class, he said, 12 of 241 new firefighters signed the agreements.

"You don't want to out-of-hand reject someone for what might have been a youthful indiscretion," he said. Agreements allow officials to test work habits ''and at the same time you're able to check whether they're using prohibited or illegal substances.''

Fire officials said Christopher DaParma, the firefighter whose father was charged with bribery, was hired in 2003 despite two misdemeanor convictions, including one in 1996 for possession of drug paraphernalia.

As a condition of his hiring, he agreed to undergo periodic drug testing for 36 months. In 15 tests administered since his hiring, the officials said, he had tested negative for drug use. But on May 8, they said, his test came back positive for cocaine. Ten days later he was suspended without pay for 30 days and faced dismissal. He quit the department on July 7.

Mr. DaParma's father, Thomas, a retired firefighter and a former union official, was charged with two counts of criminal solicitation of bribery. Prosecutors said he offered two workers at the Bendiner & Schlesinger laboratory in Brooklyn thousands of dollars to dispose of his son's incriminating urine samples.

The department's increased concern about drug and alcohol use comes amid reports in recent years of discipline problems, some public and embarrassing for the department, involving firefighters and alcohol.

In the last year, Mr. Gribbon said, five firefighters have been fired for violating stipulation agreements.

Cases involving firefighters considered for the agreements are examined by the department's personnel review board, which includes the department's top officials and representatives from legal, administrative, personnel and human resources departments.

Mr. Gribbon said that department officials think the procedure for entering the agreements is a fair one, but added that the process would be looked at closely, ''to see if there is room for improvements.''

It is unclear whether, in years past, the department would have taken on the same firefighters who are now hired conditionally. Admission to the Fire Department remains subject to a rigorous written and physical exam, and a fraction of the thousands of applicants are admitted to the department's training academy.

''The perception is that there are a lot more of the agreements than there were in previous years,'' Fire Capt. Paul Washington, the president of the Vulcan Society, an association of black firefighters, said in a telephone interview last night. ''I think they're being overused. There are guys I know that are on stipulations that shouldn't be.'' Conversely, he said, he knew of other people who had signed the agreements who should never have been hired.

''They're unsure, and instead of coming out with a firm decision, they're trying to have it both ways,'' he said of the department and the policy.

Glenn Corbett, an assistant professor of fire science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, criticized the department's use of a policy that, he said, was often unnecessary. ''The Fire Department is one of the most desirable positions in city government,'' Mr. Corbett said. ''I can't see why they would want to bend over backwards to bring in someone who has problems when they have other candidates who are well qualified.''

In addition to the stipulation agreements reached before hiring, firefighters who commit offenses while on active duty can also be selected for stipulation agreements, Mr. Gribbon said.

In February, a firefighter with an agreement signed after he was hired was implicated in allegations of sexual misconduct after a city investigation found that he and two other firefighters had sex with a woman in a firehouse and tried to cover it up.

The firefighter, Anthony Loscuito, was hired in 2001 despite an earlier conviction for drug possession, the city report found. After joining the department, Firefighter Loscuito was arrested again, on a drug possession charge, and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.

The Police Department does not enter into stipulation agreements, but like the Fire Department, it considers felony convictions a bar to hiring, said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's top spokesman.

Candidates for the department with misdemeanor violations might still be hired, depending on the severity of their offense and how recently they occurred, he said.